Here are the key challenges the new pensions minister will face

From auto-enrolment to state pension age, there's plenty of pickles in pensions (Source: Getty)

Steve Webb

The recent reshuffle meant a whole host of new ministerial faces both at the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). These new ministers will have a full agenda when it comes to pensions.

At DWP, the new secretary of state is Damian Green, who will be responsible for controlling welfare spending and getting people back to work. Much day-to-day work on pensions will therefore fall to the new incumbent, Richard Harrington.

A second big issue in the ministerial in-tray will be the review of the state pension age, currently being undertaken by former CBI chief John Cridland. By law, the state pension age has to be reviewed every five years, and further increases to working lives can be expected in order to catch up with growing life expectancies.

In a post-Brexit world where there are perhaps far fewer economic migrants of working age, we may face labour market shortages which will require more of us to work for longer in future.

But the biggest pensions issue is one that does not come within the scope of the DWP at all, and this is the future of pensions tax relief. Last year the Treasury ran a consultation on options for tax relief but in the end backed off making changes, not least to avoid a political row in the run up to the European referendum.

But the issue has not gone away. The temptation for ministers will be to continue their recent habit of seeing pension tax relief as a ‘cash cow’ to be dipped in to every couple of years for another billion pounds or so.